Passion Fire

In a small village in a valley everyone who reaches the age of 70 must leave the village and go to a certain mountain top to die. If anyone should refuse they would disgrace their family. Old Orin is 69. This winter it is her turn to go to the mountain. But first she must make sure that her eldest son Tatsuhei finds a wife.

In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.

Official Shogunate executioner Ogami Itto has been framed for disloyalty to the Shogunate by the Yagyu clan, against whom he now is waging a one-man war, along with his infant son, Daigoro.

After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for her but to challenge the leader of the region's finest school of fencing. To prove his valor and skill, he walks deliberately into ambushes set up by the school's followers.

A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers.

The Aso family live in the old town of Nara. One Day, Kei, one of the Aso's twin boys suddenly disappears. Five years later seventeen-year old Shun, the remaining twin, is an art student. He now has to move forward with his life, together with his childhood friend, Yu.

A sweeping drama set in the chaotic aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, where the life of top UN diplomat Brazilian Sérgio Vieira de Mello hangs in the balance during the most treacherous mission of his career.

The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.

An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their grown children, only to find them preoccupied and self-involved.

Toshio hires Yasaka to work in his workshop. But then this old acquaintance, who has just been released from prison, begins to meddle in Toshio's family life.

Evangelist Carlton Pearson is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell.

With most of his family already dead at Ogami Itto's hands, Retsudo launches one final plot to destroy him, and when that fails, unleashes the fury of every remaining member of the Yagyu clan.

Kiyoha rises from the lowly courtesan ranks to the high class position of Oiran in the steamy red-light district of Yoshiwara. She is determined to stand on her own two feet and live life as she pleased.

The neglected common-law wife of a Japanese librarian is repeatedly harassed by a young man with a heart condition who seduces her with the prospect of a better life.

Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.

In a distinctly contemporary Tokyo that looks backwards to the city’s disappearing past, Yoko is a writer investigating the life of a modernist composer of the 1930s. She is pregnant by a man she does not want to marry and has found a kindred spirit in a used bookstore owner who aids her research.

A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team

Back from a tour of duty, Kelli struggles to find her place in her family and the rust-belt town she no longer recognizes.

The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.

Ocho is accidentally captured by a drug trafficking cartel who use Chinese women to smuggle drugs into Japan by hiding it in their vaginas. She is tortured, and manages to escape, fighting both the male yakuzas and a gang of female thieves.